Interactive literature

Text and questions

The peasants listened to these stories thoughtfully. They said the Lord's punishment had finally reached the Jews. They had deserved it long ago, ever since they crucified Christ. God never forgot. If he had overlooked the sins of the Jews so far, he had not forgiven them. Now the Lord was using the Germans as His instrument of justice. The Jews were to be denied the privilige of a natural death. They had to perish by fire, suffering the torment of hell here on earth. They were being justly punished for the shameful crimes of their ancestors, for refuting the only True Faith, for merciless killing Christian babies and drinking their blood. The villagers now gave me even darker looks. "You Gypsy-Jew you will burn yet, bastard you will!"

When the trains carrying Jews went by in the day-time or at dusk, the peasants line up on both sides of th etrack and waved cheerfully to the engineer, the stoker, and a few guards. Through the small square windows at the top of the locked cars, one could sometimes glimpse a human face. These people must have climbed on the shoulders of others to see where they were going and to find out whose voices they heard outside. Seeing the friendly gestures of the peasants the people in the car must have thought that they themselves were being greeted. Then the Jewish faces would disappear and a mass of thin, pale arms would wave desperate signals. The peasants watched the trains with curiosity, listening intently to the strange humming sound of the human throng, neither groan, cry, nor song. The train went by, and as it pulled away one could still see against the dark background of the forest disembodied hman arms waving tirelessly from the windows. Sometimes at night people traveling on the trains to the crematories would toss their small children through the windows in the hope of saving their lives.

Hearing voices behind him the bou tries to turn over. But his bones must have been broken, because he only moaned and a large bloody bubble appeared at his mouth. He fell back and closed his eyes. the peasants watched him suspiciously from a distance. One of the women crept froward, grabbed the worn shoes on his feet, and tore them off. The boy moved , groaned, and coughed up more blood. He closed his eyes again and remained motionless. Two men grabbed him by the legs and turned him over. He was dead. They took of his jacket, shirt, and shorts and carried him to the middle of the track. He was left there and the German patrol car could not miss him.

Although I regretted the boy's tragedy, at the  bottom of my mind lurked a feeling of relief that he was dead. Keeping him in the village would do no one any good, I thought. He would threaten the lives of all of us. If the Germans heard about a Jewish foundling , they would converge on the village. They would search every house, they would find the boy, and they would also find me. They would kill us both together and punisch the village later.

I pulled the cap over my face, dragging my feet at the end of the line. Wouldnt it be easier to cahnge people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn in them?

Questions on the author:

1) Did Kosinski really live like the boy in the painted bird? Why is that hard to tell?

2) Looking at his background, why did Kozinski become a liar, cheat and controlfreak?

Questions on the text:

1) How is the murder of the Jews justified? What has propaganda got to do with that?

2) What feeling of the town people do you get? Can you understand that?

3) Can you answer the question the boy asks at the end of this part?

mail answers to:mischti@hotmail.com